ITC: Samsung Infringed on Two Apple Patents

Updated: The U.S. International Trade Commission said Samsung Electronics infringed on two Apple patents, Brett Kendall reports, and ordered a ban on the sale and importing of devices that violate those patents. Samsung didn’t infringe on four other patents, the ITC said.

The ITC ruling — you can read it here — is chock full of jargon and legalese. The two infringed patents are in the areas of finger gestures — basically determining what the user is trying to do when the finger or fingers hit the touchscreen — and audio jacks. It isn’t immediately clear which Samsung products are affected by the ban.

Here is the ITC ruling in its own words:

The Commission has determined that the appropriate remedy is a limited exclusion order prohibiting Samsung from importing certain electronic digital media devices that infringe one or more of claims 1, 4-6, 10, and 17-20 of the ’949 patent and claims 1-4 and 8 of the ’501 patent. The Commission has also determined to issue cease and desist orders prohibiting SEA and STA from further importing, selling, and distributing articles that infringe one or more of claims 1, 4-6, 10, and 17-20 of the ’949 patent and claims 1-4 and 8 of the ’501 patent in the United States. The orders do not apply to the adjudicated design around products found not to infringe the asserted claims of the ’949 and the ’501 patents as identified in the final ID. The Commission has carefully considered the submissions of the parties and the public and has determined that the public interest factors enumerated in section 337(d)(1) and (f)(1) do not preclude issuance of the limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders.

Samsung can continue selling affected products for two months while the Obama administration reviews the decision. The White House last week vetoed a June ITC order in Samsung’s favor that would have barred the sale of some older-model Apple devices.

Samsung said after the ITC ruling that it has taken measures to ensure all products are available in the U.S.

Meanwhile, interesting analysis from Florian Mueller, who blogs at Foss Patents and tweets @fosspatents. He writes that the Apple win is significant in terms of Apple’s trajectory in the overall patent cage-match. What’s important, he says, isn’t only whether Samsung has figured out a workaround, but also whether the workaround (or, designaround as he calls it in some cases) is still the same quality.